Well as I'm sure you've heard by now, Evo Morales has won the presidential elections held yesterday in Bolivia.
I watched CNN's coverage of it this morning, and it's similar to what the
BBC is reporting:
Bolivia candidate 'US nightmare'
Mr Morales' campaign has been marked by anti-US slogans The leftist front-runner for Sunday's election in Bolivia, Evo Morales, has ended his campaign saying his movement is "a nightmare for the United States".
Mr Morales has vowed to end free-market policies and legalise the growing of coca, which has traditional uses but is also used in the production of cocaine.
Basically, the English-language press has focused on these three issues - 1) he's a "nightmare" for the US, 2) he wants to legalize the growing of coca and 3) he is anti-free trade.
What's odd is that all the high and mighty western press were estimating that Morales would get less than 50% of the vote, leading to a run-off contest in the Congress which Morales might've lost. Except that Morales has won handily and his main opponent has already conceded defeat, even though the official voting results aren't in.
Yet I thought I'd look at the Spanish-language press to see what they were reporting - and there's a lot I discovered.
Bolivia's papers are just now appearing online, so I'll go to some other sources. As always, all translations are mine and therefore all errors are mine.
From Prensa Latina, a Cuban-financed news organization:
Evo Morales Admits The Risk of an American Intervention in Bolivia
Rio de Janeiro [Brazil] December 18 - The leading candidate for the presidency of Bolivia, Evo Morales, said that if he wins today, he will seek to establish a balanced relationship with the United States, without being submissive, although he admitted there's a risk that the United States will intervene in his country.
In an interview published today in O Globo, he said that this intervention "could occur, but it will only bring more conflict" and reaffirmed that he is a defender of dialogue and the need to have "a balanced economic relationship and trade, not submission" with the United States.
Morales thanked the Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for his explicit support and also said he has a good relationship with President Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Fidel Castro (Cuba), Nestor Kirchner (Argentina) and Tabare Vazquez (Uruguay).
Yes indeed Morales does. And his win is just another setback for the United States' hegemonic dominance of the hemisphere, which has been ongoing for nearly 200 years. This tidal wave of independence from the United States really kicked off earlier this year, when for the first time in history, the U.S.' preferred candidate for President of the Organization of American States (OAS) lost. For my complete story on the issue of U.S. loss of influence in the region, see here.
Now we go to Expansion. Again, translation is mine:
Evo Morales, leader of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS), has announced he will nationalize natural gas and oil. Yesterday, the indigenous leader called on the White House to respect "the sovereign will of the Bolivian people" after casting his vote in the village town of La Villa...
...Morales used the occasion to call on the President of the United States, George W. Bush, to withdrawl troops from Iraq and from "military bases in Latin America" and expressed his disposition to begin a dialogue with the United States, "although not one of submission"...
...He [Morales] also stated that if the American government "shall defend life and considers itself a democracy" it should withdraw "the troops from Iraq and remove all military bases from Latin America" because "we're not in a war time situation".
He also spoke of his respect for the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, and the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, whom he described as "brothers and friends" in the "fight to restore sovereignty".
At 46 years old, the indigenous Aymara [Morales] stated recently in an interview published in La Vanguardia that the contracts signed with the oilc ompanies by previous Bolivian governments are "illegal and unconstitutional" and added that the multinational companies in the country have been "poor caretakers" of their investments. Right now, he stated that the companies "which do not pay taxes" cannot pressure the government, which will revise all the contracts and that "if we are the owners, then we will give the licenses to the multinationals. We will study this shortly". Morales assured that what he wants is for the nationalization of resources and called on "refunding the nation" and called for an end to "the colonial state and the neo-liberal model".
Yikes... well the CIA and the U.S. government have a long, long, looooong history of overthrowing governments precisely for nationalizing major resources, and Morales is planning to do just that.
As always, I recommend the peerless NarcoNews for coverage of Latin American events, including Morales' historic win. I should add here too that the voting has been deemed free, fair and completely democratic. Now you know why voting is always rigged in U.S. puppet states - it's just too darn risky that someone gets elected whom you don't like!
I should mention here that Morales wants to legalize the growing of coca, not the manufacture and/or sale of cocaine. That seems a little like splitting hairs, but what he's referring to is the domestic consumption of coca leaves, a centuries-long tradition by the indigenous people, not the refinement into the white, powdered illegal drug.
For the last word, we'll go to Morales himself, direct from his own website:
Thanks to Pachamama, the Mother Earth, Thanks for the Coca Leaf
We, the Aymaras and Quechua [indigenous peoples], the original peoples of the Andes, have survived the whips of the white man until today thanks to our coca leaf. From the moment they came to our lands, the whites have wanted to control our leaf to enrich themselves. The coca leaf is one of our greatest treasures, and it has been abused by them here and now it is abused by them all over the world. As they have not been able to control this, they have decided to destroy it.
They have catalogued our sacred leaf as a drug, they have outlawed it and made it forbidden under the U.N. conventions on drugs. With these conventions, the United Nations has offended and betrayed the Aymara and Quechua nations. Under the mandle of these conventions and after impoverishing our people with their neoliberal politics, the government of the United States, the first enemy of the Indians, have used their dollars to suborn the Bolivian government, break its institutions and pit the rest of the Bolivian people against us. Lately, the American Embassy in La Paz has set forth a mercenary force with orders to destroy the coca and the Indians who defend it.
Coca is not a drug!
We have to put an end to this lie. The time has come to finish with the threat of destruction of the coca and our way of community life. The coca leaf has sustained us through all the adversities we've faced and we shall fight with all of our power and with the help of the coca leaf, to stop the heinous plans of the white man. Such as other plants, coca is a medicine, a sacred plant. Thanks to coca, we have been able to support untold suffering caused by the infamous war of the white man against drugs.
So now you know...and yes by the way, the Bolivians use the "purple finger" as well (image courtesy of Bolivian state-run information agency).
This is cross-posted from Flogging the Simian
Peace